Chapter 374: He's Counting the Days

April 15, 2:00 p.m. Footsteps on the stairs came fast, then slow, slow like something heavy was being dragged along.

Tang Guo reached the second floor and slapped the stack of printouts onto Shen Zhixia's desk. Fresh off the printer, the corners still curled; a pen was clipped to the top right. She pulled her mask down under her chin and set her cap on the desk corner, the brim weighing down the three pages.

"Look at this."

Three pages. Across the top of the first: "Qingshi Village, one ditch." Below, storyboard lines in a neat column—which shot shows what, what line goes with which shot, laid out like a work schedule. The second page was an outline, every question blank, waiting for answers. The bottom of the third page, in bold: the court ruled.

Shen Zhixia read page by page. When she finished, she picked up the pen and drew a line under that one sentence.

"Don't write that yet."

"Why not? The ruling came down."

"First-instance ruling." She flipped the pen and tapped the page with the cap. "Appeal period runs to the twenty-third. In these fifteen days, if anyone says 'we won,' the other side can stretch that one line into half a page. If you're going to write it, write: 'The first-instance court found for the plaintiff; the defendant may appeal within fifteen days.'"

Tang Guo pulled the pages back, stared at them a moment, then pushed them over again. "You write it for me."

Shen Zhixia did. She wrote it out line by line on sticky notes and slid them across. "Copy exactly this. Don't change the wording."

Tang Guo bent over and copied. When she reached "may appeal," she stopped. "What if they do appeal?"

"Then we wait for second instance."

"How long does that take?"

"Half a year. Maybe a year."

Tang Guo clicked her tongue and looked up. "By then they'll have finished fixing the ditch, and I'll have nothing to shoot."

"Shoot now," Shen Zhixia said. "It hasn't been fixed yet. Shoot, but don't post. Save it. Keep every original frame, and with Guo Jianping—same as always, paid by the day."

"Save it until when?"

"Until a piece of paper says you can post it."

"I'll go in a couple days," Tang Guo said. "While the ditch is still untouched. When it's all fixed up, I'll go back and shoot it again—same camera position, before and after side by side, and nobody has to say a word."

"Both setups have to match," Shen Zhixia said. "Height, angle, date—all on paper, not from memory."

"My memory's better than yours." Tang Guo caught herself and stopped. "Fine. I'll write it down."

Tang Guo flipped to the second page and pointed at a line. "Do I name the factory?"

"You do. The judgment names the defendant."

"Then I'll write 'the polluting enterprise Hengyue New Materials.'"

"The judgment doesn't use that phrasing." Shen Zhixia said. "Write the company's full registered name and what the operative part of the judgment says. If you want to damn them, write out what they actually did, item by item. You don't need to invent labels."

Tang Guo crossed out "polluting enterprise" with two strokes. Then she looked up. "What about Director Cai?"

"She's allowed to speak. But what she says are the Center's words. Read her the script before anything goes out."

"Then can I write 'six children'?"

"The judgment doesn't name a single one of those children." Shen Zhixia said. "Those six children aren't part of this case. Their case goes in once it takes effect."

"Aren't they already suing?"

"Over the ditch and the land. That's what's being litigated." Shen Zhixia nudged the papers forward. "The children are a separate case. Put a name, an age, and a village together on the same line, and people get identified. Not one name goes in."

"Then I'll write 'a child.'"

"Don't write the age either."

Tang Guo looked up.

"How big is one village? How many eight-year-olds can there be?" Shen Zhixia said. "You want people to see that ditch, let them see only the ditch."

Tang Guo circled that line and wrote "a child" next to it, smaller than the rest.

"What about Auntie Chai?" She asked. "I go talk to her, or you?"

"You." Shen Zhixia said. "If I'm standing next to you, she'll nod at me, not at you."

"What if she says no?"

"Then we don't shoot." Shen Zhixia said. "The ditch we can shoot, the schoolyard we can shoot. The steps in front of her door, we don't touch."

Tang Guo nodded and jotted a note in the margin. Then she plucked the pen from beside Shen Zhixia's hand and added one more question to the bottom of the second page's outline: "The village kids have elevated lead levels in their blood—how do I say this?"

Shen Zhixia pulled a fresh sticky note, flipped through the stack of materials at the desk corner until she found the expert opinion, copied a line from it, read it aloud once, and pushed it over. "Read exactly this. Don't paraphrase."

Tang Guo tried it twice and tripped over her tongue. "I can't say this clearly."

"Then read it as-is," Shen Zhixia said. "You can't say it clearly, they won't hear it clearly; unclear is still better than wrong."

"I'll show you before I post anything," Tang Guo said.

"Cross out what needs crossing yourself," Shen Zhixia said. "I won't edit you."

"You've edited me three times, and every time it was the headline."

"Headlines cost the most."

By the window, that demand notice from Qinghe lay open on the desk—amount, account, deadline in three lines, pen resting on the paper. Li Huilan had gone to the Legal Aid Center first thing that morning and hadn't come back; it was just the two of them in the office. Lu Jibai stood, pulled the thermos from the corner, and put a glass down by Tang Guo's hand.

He tugged the stopper loose and held it in his other hand.

Water poured into the glass, reached the rim, and kept coming. It spilled over the edge first, running down the side, spreading across the desk toward the drop-off. Tang Guo yelped and reached for the three pages—too late. The water had already soaked into the bottom corner of the third page.

Only then did he stop.

He set the glass down with a clink against the desk. One hand still gripped the stopper; the other picked up the page and shook it twice. The wet corner went soft, the ink bleeding faintly.

"Rag," Tang Guo said.

He went to the sink at the top of the stairs, brought back the rag, spread it flat, and wiped. First he gathered his own spill back toward himself into a line, then wiped the desk edge, then noticed one last drop had landed on the floor, and bent down to wipe that too. Table done, he took the rag to the sink, rinsed it twice, wrung it dry, and hung it back on its nail.

He came back, stood over the now-dry patch of desk, and wiped it again.

Tang Guo's mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Shen Zhixia saw it too. When she looked up, he was bent over wiping the drop on the floor, the tendons on the back of his hand pulled tight. She swallowed her words and looked down to keep copying—finish this line, then she'd ask.

He carried the overflowed glass to the sink, dumped it, rinsed it out, came back and poured a fresh one—steady this time, leaving a finger's width at the rim—and set it by Tang Guo's hand.

"Lu Lawyer," Tang Guo said.

"Mm."

"These last couple days, you keep staring at the ground when you walk."

He lifted his eyes to her and said nothing.

Tang Guo leaned toward Shen Zhixia, voice dropped low enough for only the two of them. "These last couple days, he keeps staring at the ground when he walks."

Shen Zhixia smiled slightly, also low. "He's thinking about the appeal deadline."

Tang Guo rolled her eyes hard. "What's an appeal deadline look like? I've seen a few."

"Also Qinghe's appraisal fee." Shen Zhixia said. "Once that demand notice goes out, the clock starts. He's asked me twice this morning when we're sending it."

"I know you people count days." Tang Guo said. "It's not like I've never watched you count days."

She pulled her hand back, picked up the water, and took a sip, eyes still drifting toward the window.

"Yesterday I passed by downstairs." she said. "He was standing on the three steps out front. Hands empty, just standing there for a while. I called him. He turned around and asked me what time it was."

Shen Zhixia's hand didn't stop; the pen added another line on the sticky note.

"He also asked me whether I'd film downstairs."

"Downstairs where?"

"The noodle shop entrance." Tang Guo said. "I told him I shoot the ditch, not the doorway. He went 'mm'—and that one little sound, like he was setting something down."

Shen Zhixia's pen paused. On the tenth, in the morning, he hadn't been in the office. He'd come back at noon and said he'd run a private errand. She'd assumed he went to the Intermediate Court. He hadn't mentioned it once the rest of the day, and she hadn't thought about it again.

"He didn't say what the errand was, and you didn't ask?" Tang Guo said.

"He didn't say. I didn't ask." Shen Zhixia set the pen down. "He hates cameras. In these fifteen days the other side is watching—any random clip gets spun into trial by public opinion."

"Then I won't point a single frame at the door." Tang Guo said. "Anyway, what's worth filming about him?"

"It's not about filming him," Shen Zhixia said. "It's about filming this place. And this place has one of the firm's people standing in it."

Tang Guo let that one go. She put the glass down and raised her voice toward the window. "Lu Lawyer."

"Mm."

"Are you not sleeping?"

"Had some things to work out."

"What things?"

"Counting days."

Shen Zhixia finished the last stroke on her sticky note without looking up. "The twenty-third."

He said "mm" and nothing more. The sound landed so quietly that she looked up at him. He pushed his chair back half an inch, sat, picked up his pen again. The tip pressed against the paper, held there a long moment before it started moving.

"See?" Tang Guo whispered. "He can't even pour water without missing the glass."

"He's had a lot on his plate."

"Lots of people have a lot on their plate." Tang Guo said. "I read people better than I read paper. Something's off with him."

Shen Zhixia pushed over the sticky note with the expert opinion line. "Copy this. Stop watching everything else."

Tang Guo finished copying, squared the first two pages, and slipped them back into her bag. The third page had a wet corner. "I'll grab this once it dries," she said, and spread it on the windowsill. She slid the pen in, zipped the bag halfway, unzipped it again, felt around for her spare battery and counted, then zipped it all the way. The bag was heavy—tripod, lights, a folded reflective vest inside. When she lifted it, Lu Jibai came over from his desk, took the strap, and carried it to the top of the stairs.

2:58.

Tang Guo steadied herself with the handrail and took the bag back with her other hand. She had it, but she didn't start down. She glanced back into the room: Shen Zhixia had already lowered her head and was copying that expert opinion line onto a new sticky note, her pen moving fast.

"Lu Jibai."

"Mm."

"If you ever hurt her," Tang Guo's voice dropped low, low enough that the exhaust fan downstairs could have drowned it out, "my lens can switch on anytime."

He didn't flinch, and he didn't smile. "I know."

"I'm not joking," Tang Guo said. "My lens doesn't take sides. I do."

"I know."

Only then did she settle the strap on her shoulder, step down one stair, and stop again. "I won't ask her. I'll just be right here."

He nodded once.

The stairs creaked their way down, and somewhere in the middle of it she called out "Auntie He." The exhaust fan was running downstairs; He Xiufen answered from the stove: "Floor's slippery—walk careful."

He went back to his desk, walked around the corner of it, and shifted the page drying on the windowsill, moving it into the patch where the sun had crept in. The damp corner lifted a little with the light.

Shen Zhixia looked up. "Tang Guo gone?"

"She's gone."

"What did she say to you?"

He stood still a moment. "Told me to watch where I'm going."

She said "mm," lowered her head, copied out the last line on the sticky note, tore it off, and pressed it down where the three pages had been.

On the windowsill, the corner of the page stayed curled, refusing to lie flat.